Some day soon, the Northeastern community hopes, every coaching staff on Huntington Avenue will be complete.
The men’s hockey program welcomed Greg Cronin in April. Gene Reilly, once Bruce Crowder’s assistant for men’s hockey, was retained. Over two months after Cronin’s hiring, Dorchester native Brendan Walsh was brought on to finalize the staff.
The men’s soccer head coaching position remains in limbo since Director of Soccer Ed Matz declared his intention to lead just the women’s team. Over the course of this past week, two more assistant coaches in both women’s hockey and women’s basketball were brought on board.
On July 20, Linda Lundrigan was named a full-time assistant coach for the women’s hockey team. Lundrigan worked with the team on a part-time basis last season and has seen her job importance under head coach Laura Schuler increase for the upcoming year.
On Monday, former Loyola women’s basketball coach Mary Helen Walker was brought on board by head coach Willette White. Walker hopes to help the team transition into the Colonial Athletic Association in the winter.
Lundrigan, a 1994 graduate of Northeastern, was a member of the red and black for four seasons. She coached alongside Schuler for three seasons at UMass-Boston, including its trip to the East Coast Athletic Conference tournament in 2003-04.
Lundrigan has coached at both Newton Country Day School and Brooks School. At Brooks, Schuler helped the team to a Div. II Independent School League tournament appearance.
The tandem of Schuler and Lundrigan began during their four seasons playing for Northeastern (1989-93) when the team went 74-24-5 and made four straight postseason appearances.
The team only has one direction to move in after a dissapointing 3-25-4 (2-15-3 Hockey East) 2004-05 campaign.
Loyola won just 13 games in three seasons before Walker’s arrival. The Ramblers then became a perennial Horizon League contender, making appearances in the semifinals for three straight years from 2001-03.
Walker is no stranger to New England as she was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Providence for three years prior to Loyola.
Walker has Massachusetts in her past as well, as she played for four years at Holy Cross, being named the Patriot League Player of the Year in 1991. She was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1997.
She ranks in the top ten at Holy Cross all-time in points (1,217), assists (340) and steals (208) and guided the team to the 1991 Patriot League Championship.The team made it to just one postseason game in school history before Walker took on the job.
